


Brain In a Jar

by mystery_deer



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Abusive Relationships, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 12:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18638467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystery_deer/pseuds/mystery_deer
Summary: "What if: Holt is furious, and Kevin, who faced abuse in his life (Ray actually didn't know that) gets scared and Raymond is just SO SORRY because Kevin got afraid because of him" - Tumblr PromptWe love projecting onto a fictional character





	Brain In a Jar

Kevin hated being yelled at. Unfortunately, he had a long history of it.

His father was a loud man who, when angry, silenced the entire house. He remembered once he’d been careless and broken a vase in the living room and just stood, heart pounding. It felt like ions before he heard the thundering footsteps of his father, rushing down the stairs. He’d run.  
He heard his father shouting for him and his brother, demanding they show themselves and he knew he should, that he’d be found eventually but his limbs refused to even twitch after he’d bolted into his favorite hiding spot, a cabinet in the laundry room that was often hidden behind a hamper. He was getting too big for it, he thought. He couldn’t hide here forever. But he stayed there, cramped and safe, as his father raised hell outside.

His mother’s anger wasn’t as blanketed as his father’s. It didn’t cover or suffocate you, no. His mother’s anger was like a strike of lightning. Sudden and violent then gone. Kevin was easily targeted, too often out of place.  
“Why are you doing this to me? Do you like this, huh? Do you like to see your Mother suffer?” He was asked one evening. They had just gotten home from Kevin’s school, it was report night. He’d felt his stomach sink the moment his teacher had told his mother that he was a “bright boy” but seemed “to have trouble making friends.” By the time they’d gotten home he felt physically sick from worry.

“Do you know how humiliating it is? How patronizing? I know what it means, it means you don’t talk to anyone. God, they think I’m raising you wrong.” Kevin sat at the kitchen table and curled up as far as he could. He wished he were on the floor, or in the dark. It was too bright and he wanted to sleep, to be away from this. “SIT UP!” The world exploded in noise and he sat up so suddenly that he fell backwards. His mother exclaimed in shock as Kevin hit the ground with a unnaturally sharp sound. Her scream was dull in his ears.

She apologized to him all the way to the hospital, holding a cloth to the back of his skull and whispering to pleasepleaseplease not sleep pleasepleasepleasebaby.  
He told the doctors that he’d been careless and fallen, which was the partial truth and his mother looked relieved even though she hadn’t told him to lie. She stroked his hair and called him her special little boy and he was just glad it was over.

His first boyfriend thought it was funny to scare him. He said he liked it because “you’re usually so stone-faced, so buttoned-up.” Kevin thought later that he just liked to see him uncomfortable. He’d randomly shout, raise his voice, or puff up and Kevin would immediately wilt. He never struck him, something they both clung to during arguments.  
“Why are you so scared anyway? You think I’d hit you? God, you’re so sensitive” sensitive being too sensitive he let things get to him too easily that’s why he couldn’t make friends, he had no friends he couldn’t afford to lose him he didn’t even hit him why was he so sensitive it was just a jokejustajoke.  


They broke up after his boyfriend clapped to get his attention during an argument, the sound startling him so much he thought he might be dying. He screamed for him to get outgetoutgetout and after he’d left Kevin wandered around his empty apartment before calming down enough to lay on his couch and wait for his heart to stop beating so fast it hurt.

Raymond was so quiet. It was one of the first things he’d thought about him. He’d never met someone who was quiet without a trace of shyness. His voice over the phone was soothing one moment then playful the next and by the end of the phone call they’d scheduled drinks.  
They started dating soon after, neither of them one for flings.

Raymond yelled when he was excited, when something spectacular had happened, or when he’d finally cracked something. “Bingpot!” was the first thing he’d shouted and Kevin had flinched but quickly recovered, being handed a carnival prize toy. “Gotcha.”  
“And it only took...eleven tries.”  
“It was worth it.”  
“And twenty dollars.” They kissed and Kevin found out at home that the toy only cost at most two dollars for purchase. He sent Raymond one in the mail. 

He was pleasantly surprised when, during their first few disagreements Raymond didn’t yell. He spoke forcefully at times but never at a volume which Kevin considered ‘dangerous’ or frightening. The act of arguing itself caused him a bit of alarm (his youth had made him a chronic people-pleaser which he had been steadily rebelling against in his twenties) but overall the experience left him feeling almost giddy. 

One day Raymond yelled.

“Why are you being so difficult!?” he shouted, frustration bubbling up and exploding and thereitwasthereitwasthereitwas. Kevin blinked and fought his urge to curl up or flee, tightening his grip on his own hands. He needed the pressure, he needed something or he’d float away. “Kevin?” He was somewhere inside of himself now, body on autopilot. There were so many ways to hide.  


“Kevin?” He tilted his head slightly to indicate he was listening but felt hollow. He remembered being a child and thinking of his head like a suit that the brain- his real self, was in. He would press buttons and turn knobs and tighten screws to say words, to move, to breathe. Was he breathing? 

“There’s no need to yell.” He said cooly, eyes fixed on negative space.  
“...you are right.” He was coming back into himself, his consciousness expanding over him like spilled ink on white paper. He was in his neck, behind his eyes, in his aching stomach. He was not just a brain, he was terrified. “I’m sorry. I have been having a bad day but that’s no reason to take it out on you.” Raymond’s moustache twitched. “Are you alright?”

“I was...alarmed.” He replied, feeling the exhaustion that came with being himself. Being a body. “I apologize.”  
“Your apology is not warranted, I am at fault.” He took Kevin’s hand and squeezed it. Kevin rubbed his thumb against Raymond’s skin. “In the future I will attempt to keep remarks at an appropriate volume.” Kevin kissed his cheek and Raymond appeared flustered. No matter how long they’d been dating he was always taken aback when kissed on a whim. I feel safe. He thought. Raymond was home, a home. Raymond was solace from the storm.


End file.
